The Latest

Friday, July 22, 2016

This week's big story is the incredible rise of the Starz drama Power. In its first ever Sunday episode, it smashed through cable's recent 1.0 glass ceiling, opening season three with a 1.10 and absolutely dominating a head-to-head three-way with dramas on HBO and Showtime. For Power, it's a new series high by more than four tenths, and 80% above its last premiere. This is pretty crazy considering season two was already about 80% bigger than season one. It's quite a growth story from 0.3ish ratings as late as midway through its first season.

Power often draws comparisons to the Fox megahit Empire. One of the many secrets to Empire's success is its huge appeal within both genders, and you can kinda see that in play with Power as well. The show skews much more female than most of the staple cable dramas, but also a lot more male than potentially comparable dramas like ABC's TGIT soaps. (Or maybe the cable equivalent would be the OWN dramas.)

It was deservedly overshadowed by Starz, but HBO had a really good night of its own on Sunday, highlighted by the return of comedy Ballers (0.79) at 10/9c. This number was basically in line with what Ballers did after the premiere last season (though it premiered with a 1.10). That's a really good thing considering 1) most of those s1 episodes led out of 1.0+ True Detective episodes a year ago; and 2) of course, the fact that 20%+ y2y declines are rampant in the cable realm.

Ballers helped launch Vice Principals (0.55) at 10:30, which was solid if a bit below last year's premiere of The Brink (0.66 with a 1.10 Ballers lead-in). And it even seemed to kick some audience backwards into the 9/8c hour, where the miniseries The Night Of (0.52) doubled its premiere demo.

Against all this premium cable action, Showtime's Ray Donovan (0.27) got left out in the cold somewhat, taking a rare dip all the way to below its season premiere rating. However, Preacher (0.63) had another uptick on AMC; it had a disappointing dip to 0.43 in week four, but has now been up in four straight episodes since then...

The news was not so rosy on USA Network, where Mr. Robot was down more than a tenth to a 0.30 in week two. Last season, it actually grew from 0.46 to 0.55 in week two... so we're talking about the year-to-year deficit going from -7% to -45% in one week. I'm still not sold that it'll actually be a bubble show, as it has a lot of things going for it outside of same-day ratings. But I would say we've fallen out of "USA is happy" territory with this drop, for whatever that is worth.

FULL TABLE:

Name

Net

Ep

A18-49

Last

Seas

Avg

y2y

Proj

ProjPlus

Skew

Male

Power

STAR

1

1.10

3

1.10

+80%

1.02

70

62%

44%

Ballers

HBO

1

0.79

2

0.79

-28%

0.61

41

63%

64%

The Haves and the Have Nots

OWN

16

0.80

+7%

3

0.78

-12%

0.82

56

37%

31%

Preacher

AMC

8

0.63

+15%

1

0.64

0.64

44

47%

58%

Greenleaf

OWN

7

0.64

+23%

1

0.61

0.61

42

36%

28%

Pretty Little Liars

FREE

5

0.57

-5%

7

0.59

-32%

0.60

41

60%

23%

Rizzoli and Isles

TNT

7

0.52

-9%

7

0.57

-18%

0.57

39

18%

32%

Vice Principals

HBO

1

0.55

1

0.55

0.41

28

60%

64%

Suits

USA

2

0.49

-8%

6

0.51

-15%

0.52

35

37%

48%

The Last Ship

TNT

6

0.52

-16%

3

0.49

-32%

0.49

34

29%

58%

Wrecked

TBS

7

0.43

+7%

1

0.48

0.46

31

46%

49%

Major Crimes

TNT

5

0.50

+6%

5

0.47

-16%

0.50

34

16%

32%

Queen of the South

USA

4

0.42

+11%

1

0.43

0.40

27

42%

50%

Animal Kingdom

TNT

7

0.42

0%

1

0.43

0.42

29

44%

49%

Girl Meets World

DISN

7

0.34

-3%

3

0.41

-21%

0.42

28

28%

The Fosters

FREE

4

0.33

-3%

4

0.38

-15%

0.41

28

54%

25%

Mr. Robot

USA

2

0.30

-30%

2

0.36

-28%

0.35

24

50%

58%

The Night Of

HBO

2

0.52

+100%

1

0.36

0.43

29

47%

59%

Ray Donovan

SHOW

4

0.27

-23%

4

0.31

-27%

0.32

32%

56%

Devious Maids

LIFE

7

0.27

-21%

4

0.31

-37%

0.29

20

41%

27%

Angie Tribeca

TBS

7

0.25

-4%

1

0.26

-28%

0.24

17

55%

59%

Baby Daddy

FREE

18

0.25

-4%

5

0.26

-28%

0.27

18

59%

27%

Young and Hungry

FREE

18

0.23

-15%

3

0.26

-27%

0.25

17

61%

27%

Murder in the First

TNT

4

0.20

-31%

3

0.25

-21%

0.25

17

23%

45%

Dead of Summer

FREE

4

0.22

0%

1

0.22

0.21

14

54%

Tyrant

FX

3

0.19

0%

3

0.22

-30%

0.26

18

33%

58%

UnREAL

LIFE

7

0.20

-5%

2

0.21

-23%

0.21

14

52%

27%

Hell on Wheels

AMC

13

0.19

-32%

5

0.21

-31%

0.21

14

17%

56%

Killjoys

SYFY

3

0.18

-14%

2

0.21

-9%

0.21

14

38%

Motive

USA

16

0.20

0%

3

0.21

0.21

14

33%

Scream

MTV

8

0.16

-20%

2

0.20

-43%

0.19

13

63%

SexDrugsRockRoll

FX

3

0.20

+54%

2

0.18

-40%

0.16

11

49%

60%

Odd Mom Out

BRAV

7

0.27

+59%

2

0.18

-41%

0.17

12

45%

Dark Matter

SYFY

3

0.15

-6%

2

0.17

-30%

0.17

12

30%

Feed the Beast

AMC

8

0.13

+30%

1

0.14

0.14

9

38%

60%

12 Monkeys

SYFY

13

0.12

-20%

2

0.12

-52%

0.12

8

37%

Roadies

SHOW

4

0.08

-20%

1

0.09

0.08

6

35%

The Cablemetrics table can be sorted by clicking any of the categories at the top (and a second click will sort in the other direction.) After having sorted by a category, you can hold SHIFT and click another category to sort by the second category within the first.